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"Christian" existentialism

Occasionally, mostly out of exhaustion, the ultimate goal of the fellowship (a thousand years of a world unified behind entirely Christian leaders, Vereide s

Message 1 of 24
, Nov 6, 2005

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Occasionally, mostly out of exhaustion, the ultimate goal of the
"fellowship" (a thousand years of a world unified behind entirely
Christian leaders, Vereide's "Reich" of Jesus meant to facilitate his
return) is not particularly terrifying to me or an immediately
pressing problem. As a scientist this looming agenda saddens me, given
the history of Christian reaction to scientific progress, but then I
won't live for a thousand years, nor would I abandon scientific
endeavor just because uneducated people hold the reigns of power. As
an atheist I can only assess the agenda as more of the same: really
quite stupid superstitious people lording it over other superior
intellects. As an activist I am concerned not with the goal of the
agenda, but rather the acts committed by weak and stupid men
attempting to implement it, acts often violating the basic human
rights of the victims along the way, victims often more educated, more
intelligent, and more decent, than the agendized humans inflicting
them. I think now, this "fellowship" has too much power, too much
wealth, and is far too active in the world against ordinary citizens.
As an existentialist I can only act on what seems to be. This man is
for me a rare example of a Christian with a partial sense of what
seems to be. His example is the finest I can find for what a modern
American Christian should emulate. In these times, in this country, if
you are dabbling in existentialism, and are a Christian, start with
this man. He is the one for these days.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (February 4, 1906 - April 9, 1945) was a German
Lutheran theologian and preacher who worked for the ecumene and
strongly opposed the anti-semitic policies of Nazi Germany. He was
eventually executed.

Dietrich was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) into a
middle to upper class family, the son of a doctor. At a very young
age, before World War I began, he decided to become a minister. His
parents supported his decision and he started to spend a lot of time
studying the Bible. When he was old enough he attended college and
seminary and became a minister. He studied theology in Tübingen and in
New York City.

He returned to Germany in 1931, where he lectured on theology in
Berlin and wrote several books. A strong opponent of fascism, he fled
to London when Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. He returned after
Martin Niemöller and Karl Barth formed the anti-Nazi Confessing
Church, only to have his seminary closed down at the outbreak of World
War II. The Gestapo also banned him from preaching. During this time,
Bonhoffer worked closely with numerous opponents of Hitler.

During World War II, Dietrich played a key leadership role in the
Confessing Church, which opposed the anti-semitic policies of Adolf
Hitler. Initially Dietrich fought to gain strong support from the
state church against Hitler's treatment of the Jews, but after
countless instances of refusal to take action he took the initiative
to help start the confessing church. While the confessing church was
not large, it represented the only Christian church in Germany that
was in opposition to Hitler's practices.

After he realized that diplomatic means to stop Hitler were
impossible, he decided that assassination was the only solution. He
joined a hidden group of high-ranking officers who were trying to have
Hitler killed. Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943 after money that
was used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced to him. He was
charged with conspiracy and imprisoned for two years in Flossenbürg.
After the unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life on July 20, 1944,
connections of Bonhoeffer to the conspirators were discovered, and he
was executed by hanging just three weeks before the liberation of the
city. His execution was carried out even though the Nazis knew that
they were going to lose the war. They did not want the end of the war
to save Bonhoeffer from death.They did not consider the end of the war
the end of the Nazi agenda.

He is considered a martyr for his faith and was later absolved of any
crimes by the postwar German government. His books Ethics (1949) and
Letters from Prison (1953) were published posthumously. In his
theological writings, he states that Christianity should abandon the
"religious premise": the need for explanation of the world or man's
need for salvation are not central, but rather the acting in the world
in imitation of Jesus.

I think a modern example may be emerging in Dr. David Ray Griffin, at
least in the sense of speaking up about what may be true. Sadly, for
the most part, American Christians are afraid to face what they built
together with Bush family, the "fellowship", and Jesus Christ. In a
misguided effort to use the state to enforce and promote religion they
have surrendered the individual power to act and be what they are -
"Jesus's" in contrast to the state, in contrast to the world. I
thought the "kingdom of Jesus" was not of this world. Indeed the
existentialist Christian considers the "kingdom" to only exist in the
individual, on an individual basis, not something to be built on earth
by men in a group effort. Men in groups build buildings. Men in groups
sometimes blow buildings up. Men in groups do not, cannot, build
individual conviction and character; and for an existentialist
Christian - men in groups can blow up an individual's body, but cannot
blow up individual conviction and character.

On Oct. 15th and 16th, New Yorkers filled two venues to hear the
prominent theologian and author of two books on 9/11 give a
presentation entitled "The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A
Christian Theologian Speaks Out." Dr. Griffin has continued to blaze a
trail of courage, leading where most media and elected officials have
feared to tread. His presentation went straight to the core of one of
the most powerful indictments of the official story, the collapse of
the towers and WTC 7. Notable theologian David Ray Griffin argued that
recently revealed evidence seals the case that the Twin Towers and
WTC-7 were destroyed by controlled demolition with explosives. Despite
the many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Griffin
concluded, "It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable doubt,
one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center
was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own government."

Dr. Griffin included excerpts from the firemen's tapes which were
recently released as a result of a prolonged court battle led by
victim's families represented by attorney Norman Siegel and reported
in the NY Times. He also included statements by many witnesses. These
sources gave ample testimony giving evidence of explosions going off
in the buildings. A 12 minute film was shown for the audiences, who
saw for themselves the undeniable evidence for controlled demolition.

Dr. Griffin listed ten characteristics of the collapses which all
indicate that the buildings did not fall due to being struck by planes
or the ensuing fires. He explained the buildings fell suddenly without
any indication of collapse. They fell straight into their own
footprint at free-fall speed, meeting virtually no resistance as they
fell--a physical impossibility unless all vertical support was being
progressively removed by explosives severing the core columns. The
towers were built to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and 160 mile
per hour winds, and nothing about the plane crashes or ensuing fires
gave any indication of causing the kind of damage that would be
necessary to trigger even a partial or progressive collapse, much less
the shredding of the buildings into dust and fragments that could drop
at free-fall speed. The massive core columns--the most significant
structural feature of the buildings, whose very existence is denied in
the official 9/11 Commission Report--were severed into uniform 30 foot
sections, just right for the 30-foot trucks used to remove them
quickly before a real investigation could transpire. There was a
volcanic-like dust cloud from the concrete being pulverized, and no
physical mechanism other than explosives can begin to explain how so
much of the buildings' concrete was rendered into extremely fine dust.
The debris was ejected horizontally several hundred feet in huge fan
shaped plumes stretching in all directions, with telltale "squibs"
following the path of the explosives downward. These are all facts
that have been avoided by mainstream and even most of the alternative
media. Again, these are characteristics of the kind of controlled
demolitions that news people and firefighters were describing on the
morning of 9/11. Those multiple first-person descriptions of
controlled demolition were hidden away for almost four years by the
City of New York until a lawsuit finally forced the city to release
them. Dr. Griffin's study of these accounts has led him beyond his
earlier questioning of the official story of the collapses, to his
above-quoted conclusion: The destruction of the three WTC buildings
with explosives by US government terrorists is no longer a hypothesis,
but a fact that has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

In this venue I am asked to respect the Christian position in
existentialism, often by the moderator. I am willing to do so,
unfortunately I have yet to find any living Christians participating
here. I am always having to pick up the stones and bring back the
ghosts to find one. Real living Christians in America may become as
endangered a species as bio-chemists.

"come crucify the dread"
Trinidad Cruz

trop_de_simones

... In this venue I am asked to respect the Christian position in existentialism, often by the moderator. I am willing to do so, unfortunately I have yet to

In this venue I am asked to respect the Christian position in
existentialism, often by the moderator. I am willing to do so,
unfortunately I have yet to find any living Christians participating
here. I am always having to pick up the stones and bring back the
ghosts to find one.

TC,

In this particular venue there are only dilettantes, Christian and
Existentialist. I am disappointed, but I will get over it.

S

louise

... participating ... Simone, That is only because cyberspace cannot contain Christians. The true believer is always a human being, whom one may recognise by

>
> In this venue I am asked to respect the Christian position in
> existentialism, often by the moderator. I am willing to do so,
> unfortunately I have yet to find any living Christians

participating

> here. I am always having to pick up the stones and bring back the
> ghosts to find one.
>
> TC,
>
> In this particular venue there are only dilettantes, Christian and
> Existentialist. I am disappointed, but I will get over it.
>
> S
>

Simone,

That is only because cyberspace cannot contain Christians. The true
believer is always a human being, whom one may recognise 'by their
fruits', if you care so to do. Here at the existential groups,
there are only emanations of ourselves, who put words forth, back
and forth. Intuition tells me whom I can trust, 'behind' the words,
but it is not a proof. Kierkegaard's pseudonym, Climacus, points
out [C.U.P.] that no human being can judge another's reality.
Failure to grasp this basic fact about the teaching of the Nazarene
rabbi has led many churches into dangerous waters.

Louise
... who refuses to believe in dilettantes ...

joseph korba

The point of existentialism is all we know is one we exist and we can make decisions. The ability to make decisiions is at the heart of christianity. the

Message 4 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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The point of existentialism is all we know is one we exist and we can make decisions. The ability to make decisiions is at the heart of christianity. the decision to accept of not accept the teachings of chirist. skip

>
> In this venue I am asked to respect the Christian position in
> existentialism, often by the moderator. I am willing to do so,
> unfortunately I have yet to find any living Christians

participating

> here. I am always having to pick up the stones and bring back the
> ghosts to find one.
>
> TC,
>
> In this particular venue there are only dilettantes, Christian and
> Existentialist. I am disappointed, but I will get over it.
>
> S
>

Simone,

That is only because cyberspace cannot contain Christians. The true
believer is always a human being, whom one may recognise 'by their
fruits', if you care so to do. Here at the existential groups,
there are only emanations of ourselves, who put words forth, back
and forth. Intuition tells me whom I can trust, 'behind' the words,
but it is not a proof. Kierkegaard's pseudonym, Climacus, points
out [C.U.P.] that no human being can judge another's reality.
Failure to grasp this basic fact about the teaching of the Nazarene
rabbi has led many churches into dangerous waters.

Louise
... who refuses to believe in dilettantes ...

Please support the Existential Primer... dedicated to explaining nothing!

... imho that is also a conclusion in versions of mature philosophical reflections of other traditions that develops individually or collectively. very few

Message 5 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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> The point of existentialism is all we know is one we exist and we can
> make decisions. The ability to make decisiions is at the heart of
> christianity. the decision to accept of not accept the teachings of
> chirist.

imho that is also a conclusion in versions of mature philosophical
reflections of other traditions that develops individually or
collectively. very few people, if any, know different religious
traditions with comparable sufficient depth and experience to be able to
evaluate their comparative "worth," esp. when context is considered.

it's easier to work with comparable concrete parts than to compare
fuzzy bounded wholes.

aija

Trinidad Cruz

... wrote: imho that is also a conclusion in versions of mature philosophical reflections of other traditions that develops individually or collectively.

Message 6 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, Aija Veldre Beldavs <beldavsa@i...>
wrote:
"imho that is also a conclusion in versions of mature philosophical
reflections of other traditions that develops individually or
collectively. very few people, if any, know different religious
traditions with comparable sufficient depth and experience to be able
to evaluate their comparative "worth," esp. when context is
considered.it's easier to work with comparable concrete parts than to
compare fuzzy bounded wholes."

aija

What I find interesting about internet discussion groups is that one's
opinion becomes what one is to most readers. I could call myself any
number of "ist" or "ian" words and the conclusion of most people would
automatically be that I have no experience or understanding of any
other subject matter. In this case Nolan was a bit sharper than you.
At fourteen I was seriously considering the seminary. My experience
and understanding of the Christian religion has been lengthy and at a
depth most never reach, intertwined with painful personal
relationships, and lifelong philosophical power struggles with people
and institutions. That I am now completely an atheist is not without
implications, and not indicative of any lack of intellectual
discipline or experience on my part. There is America and Europe; and
then there is the rest of the world, a different skin tone (dark), a
different kitchen floor (dirt), a different opportunity (starving),a
different necessity (revolution). Corporate Western Jesus is not color
blind, but as a matter of fact quite efficiently racist and
greedy.Leaders of color in other nations should absolutely not embrace
American agendas, nor cow to overtures of brotherhood from the twisted
family of western wealth and power that controls this nation
today.Sadly, I really think that average American Christians will do
nothing to revolt for a change in government, and will continue to
allow this group to represent the American people and American
Christianity on the world stage, because they are still fundamentally
racist.American Christianity is really just a "justification" disease,
an avoidance of existential angst.It has now overtaken a once
enlightened idea and marches it mutated toward the ruin of the whole
world.I doubt that it can be stopped. It is clearly, scientifically,
now giddily aggressive, what it always was - a suicide cult.There is
no God to rebuild the planet: or so it was written - dominion was
given to man.

"come crucify the dread"
Trinidad Cruz

Herman B. Triplegood

Christian existentialism, as I see it, is quite relevant because it presents us with a challenge that is existentially poignant. This challenge, put simply,

Message 7 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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Christian existentialism, as I see it, is quite relevant because it presents
us with a challenge that is existentially poignant. This challenge, put
simply, is: dare to believe. Dare to believe in the resurrection into
eternal life. There is no question, here, of some kind of gnosis, some kind
of privileged access to knowledge bequeathed to a body of adepts or
initiates. When Christ said that he was the resurrection and the life, he
was not communicating anything like a doctrine or a dogma. He was, in fact,
challenging his disciples, and others, to embrace this belief,
existentially, at a level far more basic than the level of a reasoned
ascertainment of matters of fact. This is the sense in which belief mattered
for the early Christian, it is the root and grist of the early Christian
faith, which, historically, over the many centuries that have since ensued,
has become obscured by battles over doctrine, dogma, orthodoxy, and
political hegemony.

To me this is a call to the participation in the transcendent ground of
Being itself, at an existential level, at the nitty gritty level of daily
experience. It is a call to the basic facticity, the concrete reality, of
this human participation in transcendence that we have for the most part
forgotten in these modern times of anti-transcendentalism. This direct
experience of the transcendental is an existential fact that, in my opinion,
we cannot rationally deny. This is where Christian existentialism becomes
most relevant to our broader discussion of existentialism itself, and to our
question concerning the ultimate meaning of life. It seems to me that this
very question, the question concerning the meaning of life, is the
fundamental question of existentialism. We find this meaning in life's
purpose.

The answer that Christian existentialism gives us, in response to the posing
of this question, is: the purpose of life is the transcendence of death.
Life finds its meaning in the midst of the challenge of living itself, in
the face of death, with all of the existential uncertainties that this
unique juxtaposition necessarily involves. Death is not the challenge that
existence presents to life. Rather, life is the challenge that existence
presents in the face of death. What, from this perspective, then, is death?
Stated most succinctly, I would think that death is basically entropy, the
tendency for order to break down. Death is the falling apart of order.
Order, then, arises out of the courage to existence, to truly live a
meaningful life, even in the face of certain death. Life is the open-ended
project of the overcoming of such disorder, in the universe, through the
creative evolution of order that finds its pinnacle in sentient living human
being capable of participation in, and disclosure of, this transcendent
ground, and in individual lives, inspired by the challenge to believe. There
can be no question, at least in my mind, that this ground is not indeed
divine. It is not immanent, and it is not merely human, or anthropocentric,
but it does require human participation in its full disclosure in the
immanence of the field of history where Being unfolds. Whether or not it is
appropriate to further characterize this transcendent ground as the
universal creator of order in the universe, I think, is a question we
cannot, at present, answer, from our limited existential perspective.

For further thoughts on these matters I would recommend visiting many of the
works of Eric Voegelin. He communicates these ideas more effectively in his
writings than I can here with a short post to a discussion list.

What is the state of mind that has such courage to live in the face of
death? What does it mean to have an existential faith in universal order, in
the face of existential chaos? I think this is what is meant, originally, in
the very early Christian teachings, by the word "grace." It comes from the
Greek, "charis" literally meaning "gift." When we are graced, we are gifted.
This notion of grace, and the important part it has played, especially in
later Protestant thinking, and nowadays, in the more grass roots varieties
of Christian fellowship that we see, particularly, in the United States, but
also in Europe, is at the core of the so-called imitation of Christ, the
imitatio, and its centrality to the message of Christian faith should not be
underestimated.

Hence, it is with grace, that we calmly and steadfastly model our lives
after the life of the Christ himself, a human manifestation of divine spirit
in the world, who taught that eternal life is, indeed, the birthright of all
human sentient beings. Blessed are the poor, those who are downtrodden,
whose lives are made wretched by oppression and circumstance, for they will
inherit this supreme gift. There are no chosen few.

Gautama Buddha taught that attachment to life, attachment to things, can be
transcended. But Jesus, one who kept himself in the company of thieves and
prostitutes, those who are downtrodden, who are poor in spirit, who are the
ultimate victims of societies that, whether deliberately or not, promote
their own regressive elements, one who was executed as a common criminal and
political subversive, he taught that death and despair, hopelessness and
guilt, can also be transcended by means of grace.

It should be noted that, in the classic hymn, Amazing Grace, where it is
said that grace has saved such a wretched human as this, what is not
deserved here, is not the grace that saves. What is not deserved is the
wretchedness that such grace removes. The doctrine of original sin, of
being, at our human core, undeserving of grace, I view to be an injection of
a regressive element, a Manichean heresy, into the Christian teaching, that
is utterly foreign to its original hopeful message of resurrection into
eternal life and its challenge to us to live our lives in a state of divine
grace.

> The point of existentialism is all we know is one we exist and we can
> make decisions. The ability to make decisiions is at the heart of
> christianity. the decision to accept of not accept the teachings of
> chirist.

imho that is also a conclusion in versions of mature philosophical
reflections of other traditions that develops individually or
collectively. very few people, if any, know different religious
traditions with comparable sufficient depth and experience to be able to
evaluate their comparative "worth," esp. when context is considered.

it's easier to work with comparable concrete parts than to compare
fuzzy bounded wholes.

aija

Please support the Existential Primer... dedicated to explaining nothing!

Trinidad: I hope that my use of the term grass roots in referencing some modern Christians will not be mistaken as a reference to the current fundamentalist

Message 8 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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Trinidad:

I hope that my use of the term "grass roots" in referencing some modern
Christians will not be mistaken as a reference to the current fundamentalist
movement in American Christianity today. Your post is heartfelt and very
much to the point. I am deeply disturbed by the movement toward radical
Christian fundamentalism in America today, and I fear that the political
hegemony that this regressive element in American culture continues to
achieve can ultimately spell disaster, not only for we Americans, but also,
most tragically, for those many downtrodden folks in the world who have not
been blessed with the opportunity to be born into a wealthy nation. The news
becomes almost excruciating to watch, not only because of the extreme levels
of violence that we now see playing out upon the world stage, but also
because of the blithe American sentiment of paranoia and racism that plays
us right into the hands of a geo-political disaster of our own making.

We live in a world, now, due to our technological capability, that makes
policy inspired by paranoia a phenomenon extremely dangerous to the world. I
hope, I pray, that sanity can, and will, prevail here in America. I am,
however, not very encouraged by what I see playing out day by day as the
rhetoric of intolerance and of preemption continues to sharpen. I fear that
the lessons of history are lost upon an America that is, for the most part,
completely a-historical in its outlook. How easily, how conveniently, we
forget that over two centuries of Western colonialism have exacerbated the
ills of that have struggled to get out from under the jack booted dictators
that we have propped up with our selfish and short-sighted policies of
economic exploitation. How easily we avoid any discussion of our genocide of
the Native American Indian as we point the finger of genocide at others.

You are right to point out the character of the so-called corporate Western
Jesus that prevails today in American society. We are so parochial, so like
the ugly American in the movie. Our pride is our downfall. Nevertheless, I
am here. I was born into this America, and I do love this land, and many of
its people, although my feelings for its politicians and social activists is
dubious, to say the least. I do what I can, in my own small way, to try to
make a difference, even if it is only a difference that I can make in my own
small circle of acquaintances, in the arena of a real life that only
partially intersects these lists. There are still good people here in
America, but we have lost our voice, and we have become increasingly
marginalized as the social-political right continues to grip, ever tighter,
to power, and the social agenda careens out of control.

America needs to return to, and revitalize, the liberal philosophy upon
which it was originally founded. We need to live up to our vision of equal
justice for all, in recognition of the fact that we no longer live in one
country, isolated from the rest of the world, that are not entitled to some
gift of manifest destiny with which to bring our social-political agenda to
other peoples at the end of the barrel of a gun.

I find it profoundly ironic that we are now engaged in the implementation of
democracy, by force, elsewhere in the world. I will also find it tragically
ironic when the point is soon reached where as many of our young soldiers
have died fighting in Iraq as those innocents who died on that black day in
September four years ago. I wonder how the Bush White House is going to
answer to this looming benchmark in the war.

Since the attacks on September 11th, 2001, the past four years have seemed,
to me at least, to be a psychotic frenzy of paranoid schizophrenia acted out
upon the political stage of American life. I had hoped that it would pass
after a brief knee jerk reaction, but then Iraq happened, and then the
revelations that the reasons to go to war there were all fabricated to serve
the political agenda. The real danger here in America isn't what, when, or
where, the next terrorist attack against us might be. The real danger is how
America might react to a continuing series of such attacks as the level of
paranoia continues to escalate.

The America that I now live in is unrecognizable to me. It is not the
America that I was born into forty seven years ago. It is not even the
America that I knew only four or five short years ago.

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, Aija Veldre Beldavs <beldavsa@i...>
wrote:
"imho that is also a conclusion in versions of mature philosophical
reflections of other traditions that develops individually or
collectively. very few people, if any, know different religious
traditions with comparable sufficient depth and experience to be able
to evaluate their comparative "worth," esp. when context is
considered.it's easier to work with comparable concrete parts than to
compare fuzzy bounded wholes."

aija

What I find interesting about internet discussion groups is that one's
opinion becomes what one is to most readers. I could call myself any
number of "ist" or "ian" words and the conclusion of most people would
automatically be that I have no experience or understanding of any
other subject matter. In this case Nolan was a bit sharper than you.
At fourteen I was seriously considering the seminary. My experience
and understanding of the Christian religion has been lengthy and at a
depth most never reach, intertwined with painful personal
relationships, and lifelong philosophical power struggles with people
and institutions. That I am now completely an atheist is not without
implications, and not indicative of any lack of intellectual
discipline or experience on my part. There is America and Europe; and
then there is the rest of the world, a different skin tone (dark), a
different kitchen floor (dirt), a different opportunity (starving),a
different necessity (revolution). Corporate Western Jesus is not color
blind, but as a matter of fact quite efficiently racist and
greedy.Leaders of color in other nations should absolutely not embrace
American agendas, nor cow to overtures of brotherhood from the twisted
family of western wealth and power that controls this nation
today.Sadly, I really think that average American Christians will do
nothing to revolt for a change in government, and will continue to
allow this group to represent the American people and American
Christianity on the world stage, because they are still fundamentally
racist.American Christianity is really just a "justification" disease,
an avoidance of existential angst.It has now overtaken a once
enlightened idea and marches it mutated toward the ruin of the whole
world.I doubt that it can be stopped. It is clearly, scientifically,
now giddily aggressive, what it always was - a suicide cult.There is
no God to rebuild the planet: or so it was written - dominion was
given to man.

"come crucify the dread"
Trinidad Cruz

Please support the Existential Primer... dedicated to explaining nothing!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post, despite my disagreements. Hb3g: Christian existentialism, as I see it, is quite relevant because it presents us with a

Message 9 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post, despite my disagreements.

Hb3g:
Christian existentialism, as I see it, is quite relevant because it
presents us with a challenge that is existentially poignant. This
challenge, put simply, is: dare to believe. Dare to believe in the
resurrection into eternal life... When Christ said that he was the
resurrection and the life, he was not communicating anything like a
doctrine or a dogma. He was, in fact, challenging his disciples, and
others, to embrace this belief, existentially, at a level far more
basic than the level of a reasoned ascertainment of matters of fact.

K:
The challenge of Christian existentialism is poignant to those who
share an interpretation of early Jewish Mediterranean history, in
which a purportedly historical figure named Jesus taught, performed
miracles, and died for our sins. Subtract this interpretation and
the poignancy of the challenge dies with it. What's more, the
challenge is no more relevant than other challenges made by
different religions. From Buddhism and Hinduism, to Judaism and
Islam, to Mormonism and Scientology, religions present a very
similar challenge: Believe X, where X stands for an article of faith
that is deemed important to worshippers in that tradition. Believe
that Buddha was transfigured under the bodhi tree. Believe in Mosaic
law and God's covenant. Believe in Joseph Smith's golden plates.
Believe that we possess a Thetan soul. Etc. The world is filled with
all manner of religious beliefs, and I am under no obligation to
believe all of them, or any of them. The existentialist motto is (or
ought to be): Dare to think, dare to act, dare to be in a changing,
uncertain world.

Hb3g:
To me this is a call to the participation in the transcendent ground
of Being itself, at an existential level, at the nitty gritty level
of daily experience.

K:
When you say, "To me this is a call..," I believe you. But it's a
self-referential statement. Descartes makes a similar move in the
Meditations, where he says, "I cannot think of myself without God."
While that may be true of Descartes, it's false for a broad range of
thinkers across the philosophical spectrum.

Hb3g:
This direct experience of the transcendental is an existential fact
that, in my opinion, we cannot rationally deny.

K:
Direct experience of the transcendental is a paradox, not an
existential fact, and so can be rationally denied.

> presents us with a challenge that is existentially poignant. This
> challenge, put simply, is: dare to believe. Dare to believe in the
> resurrection into eternal life... When Christ said that he was the
> resurrection and the life, he was not communicating anything like

a

> doctrine or a dogma. He was, in fact, challenging his disciples,

and

> others, to embrace this belief, existentially, at a level far more
> basic than the level of a reasoned ascertainment of matters of

fact.

>
> K:
> The challenge of Christian existentialism is poignant to those who
> share an interpretation of early Jewish Mediterranean history, in
> which a purportedly historical figure named Jesus taught,

performed

> miracles, and died for our sins. Subtract this interpretation and
> the poignancy of the challenge dies with it. What's more, the
> challenge is no more relevant than other challenges made by
> different religions. From Buddhism and Hinduism, to Judaism and
> Islam, to Mormonism and Scientology, religions present a very
> similar challenge: Believe X, where X stands for an article of

faith

> that is deemed important to worshippers in that tradition. Believe
> that Buddha was transfigured under the bodhi tree. Believe in

Mosaic

> law and God's covenant. Believe in Joseph Smith's golden plates.
> Believe that we possess a Thetan soul. Etc. The world is filled

with

> all manner of religious beliefs, and I am under no obligation to
> believe all of them, or any of them. The existentialist motto is

(or

> ought to be): Dare to think, dare to act, dare to be in a

changing,

> uncertain world.
>
> Hb3g:
> To me this is a call to the participation in the transcendent

ground

> of Being itself, at an existential level, at the nitty gritty

level

> of daily experience.
>
> K:
> When you say, "To me this is a call..," I believe you. But it's a
> self-referential statement. Descartes makes a similar move in the
> Meditations, where he says, "I cannot think of myself without

God."

> While that may be true of Descartes, it's false for a broad range

of

> thinkers across the philosophical spectrum.
>

Hb3g

This direct experience of the transcendental is an existential fact
that, in my opinion, we cannot rationally deny.

K

Direct experience of the transcendental is a paradox, not an
existential fact, and so can be rationally denied.

L [Climacus]

Statement concerning the direct experience of the transcendental
will appear to the objectivist existentialist to be paradox.

The subjectivist existentialist will, at the very least, acknowledge
the logical possibility that the transcendental may be directly
experienced.

The human being who types these words knows by experience the truth
of what Hermann writes. That is merely a biographical statement,
not one I would expect to convince anyone of its subjective truth -
for no one else is me. Only the truth that edifies is truth for
you. So said my sweet lover Soren. [I am Regine].

jkneilson

L [Climacus]: The human being who types these words knows by experience the truth of what Hermann writes. That is merely a biographical statement, not one I

Message 11 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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L [Climacus]:

The human being who types these words knows by experience the truth
of what Hermann writes. That is merely a biographical statement,
not one I would expect to convince anyone of its subjective truth -
for no one else is me. Only the truth that edifies is truth for
you. So said my sweet lover Soren. [I am Regine].

K:
"Subjectivists" are welcome to believe whatever they want. But if they
want to convince others of their "truth," they'll need to go
beyond "true for me" statements. This is an elementary point. If I
tried to convince you that Kierkegaard actually hated Regine, I'd be
off to a bad start indeed by saying it's true because it's "true for
me," or that it's true because I find it "edifying." [I am K]

louise

... they ... be ... for ... Who is K?? I hate inquisitions. I hate ignoramuses who persecute the just (that s none of your business, please ignore). Have you

>
> L [Climacus]:
>
> The human being who types these words knows by experience the truth
> of what Hermann writes. That is merely a biographical statement,
> not one I would expect to convince anyone of its subjective truth -
> for no one else is me. Only the truth that edifies is truth for
> you. So said my sweet lover Soren. [I am Regine].
>
> K:
> "Subjectivists" are welcome to believe whatever they want. But if

they

> want to convince others of their "truth," they'll need to go
> beyond "true for me" statements. This is an elementary point. If I
> tried to convince you that Kierkegaard actually hated Regine, I'd

be

> off to a bad start indeed by saying it's true because it's "true

for

> me," or that it's true because I find it "edifying." [I am K]

Who is K??

I hate inquisitions.

I hate ignoramuses who persecute the just (that's none of your
business, please ignore).

Have you read "Guilty"/"Not Guilty?" A Story of Suffering, An
Imaginary Psychological Construction, by Frater Taciturnus, within
the volume, 'Stages On Life's Way [Studies by Various Persons]'??
This volume was compiled by Hilarius Bookbinder, not one of the
authors or an editor.
Soren Kierkegaard was the man behind this sublimity, available in
translation from Princeton University Press (Hong & Hong 1988).

In Frater Taciturnus' study, you will find the answers to all your
questions, if you have any. I defy you not to be moved, at any
rate, by the agony of love on display, in concealment.

Louise

jkneilson

Louise: Who is K?? K: Apparently one who conducts inquisitions. Louise: Have you read Guilty / Not Guilty? A Story of Suffering, An Imaginary Psychological

Message 13 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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Louise: Who is K??

K: Apparently one who conducts inquisitions.

Louise: Have you read "Guilty"/"Not Guilty?" A Story of Suffering, An
Imaginary Psychological Construction, by Frater Taciturnus, within the
volume, 'Stages On Life's Way??

K: Yes, I have read it, years ago, and loved it.

Louise: In Frater Taciturnus' study, you will find the answers to all
your questions, if you have any.

K: Now you're just teasing me, Louise. You know I have questions. But
I've learned to avoid them in your presence, since you're committed to
Iliadic dialectic and all.

Cheers.

trop_de_simones

Trinidad, I recognize a formerly serious Christian when I read one. You are obviously a more patient person than me. I normally get very angry with people who

Message 14 of 24
, Nov 7, 2005

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Trinidad,

I recognize a formerly serious Christian when I read one. You are
obviously a more patient person than me. I normally get very angry
with people who question my intent or credentials. It is most
unfortunate that we are not able to scrutinize the real lives of the
poseurs who frequent these discussion venues. My intuition never
fails me, but I need to follow it more often, sooner. Thank you.

> opinion becomes what one is to most readers. I could call myself any
> number of "ist" or "ian" words and the conclusion of most people

would

> automatically be that I have no experience or understanding of any
> other subject matter. In this case Nolan was a bit sharper than you.
> At fourteen I was seriously considering the seminary. My experience
> and understanding of the Christian religion has been lengthy and at

a

> depth most never reach, intertwined with painful personal
> relationships, and lifelong philosophical power struggles with

people

> and institutions. That I am now completely an atheist is not without
> implications, and not indicative of any lack of intellectual
> discipline or experience on my part. There is America and Europe;

and

> then there is the rest of the world, a different skin tone (dark), a
> different kitchen floor (dirt), a different opportunity (starving),a
> different necessity (revolution). Corporate Western Jesus is not

color

> blind, but as a matter of fact quite efficiently racist and
> greedy.Leaders of color in other nations should absolutely not

embrace

> American agendas, nor cow to overtures of brotherhood from the

twisted

> family of western wealth and power that controls this nation
> today.Sadly, I really think that average American Christians will do
> nothing to revolt for a change in government, and will continue to
> allow this group to represent the American people and American
> Christianity on the world stage, because they are still

fundamentally

> racist.American Christianity is really just a "justification"

disease,

> an avoidance of existential angst.It has now overtaken a once
> enlightened idea and marches it mutated toward the ruin of the whole
> world.I doubt that it can be stopped. It is clearly, scientifically,
> now giddily aggressive, what it always was - a suicide cult.There is
> no God to rebuild the planet: or so it was written - dominion was
> given to man.
>
> "come crucify the dread"
> Trinidad Cruz
>

Hb3g:
Christian existentialism, as I see it, is quite relevant because it
presents us with a challenge that is existentially poignant. This
challenge, put simply, is: dare to believe. Dare to believe in the
resurrection into eternal life... When Christ said that he was the
resurrection and the life, he was not communicating anything like a
doctrine or a dogma. He was, in fact, challenging his disciples, and
others, to embrace this belief, existentially, at a level far more
basic than the level of a reasoned ascertainment of matters of fact.

K:
The challenge of Christian existentialism is poignant to those who
share an interpretation of early Jewish Mediterranean history, in
which a purportedly historical figure named Jesus taught, performed
miracles, and died for our sins. Subtract this interpretation and
the poignancy of the challenge dies with it. What's more, the
challenge is no more relevant than other challenges made by
different religions. From Buddhism and Hinduism, to Judaism and
Islam, to Mormonism and Scientology, religions present a very
similar challenge: Believe X, where X stands for an article of faith
that is deemed important to worshippers in that tradition. Believe
that Buddha was transfigured under the bodhi tree. Believe in Mosaic
law and God's covenant. Believe in Joseph Smith's golden plates.
Believe that we possess a Thetan soul. Etc. The world is filled with
all manner of religious beliefs, and I am under no obligation to
believe all of them, or any of them. The existentialist motto is (or
ought to be): Dare to think, dare to act, dare to be in a changing,
uncertain world.

[Hb3g]

I believe you understand this already, however, I say anyway that I respect
both your freedom to rationally decide your own beliefs, and I also
acknowledge that there are many spiritual and philosophical traditions. It
would be dogmatic of me to categorically assert that the Christian vision is
the only way. Nevertheless, even in the midst of great diversity of
tradition, creed, opinion, one cannot rationally assert a complete
relativism of such values. Belief matters, and questions of faith, or trust
in the rationality of existence, are lively questions, however, there ought
not to be subservience to blind faith either. I agree with you that is as
important to dare to think, and act, as well as to believe.

Hb3g:
To me this is a call to the participation in the transcendent ground
of Being itself, at an existential level, at the nitty gritty level
of daily experience.

K:
When you say, "To me this is a call..," I believe you. But it's a
self-referential statement. Descartes makes a similar move in the
Meditations, where he says, "I cannot think of myself without God."
While that may be true of Descartes, it's false for a broad range of
thinkers across the philosophical spectrum.

[Hb3g]

I couched this in those personal terms so as not to come across as being too
dogmatic. I must admit that this is my take on the matter. It is a take,
however, that is also shared by others for the various reasons that such
thinkers do present. That there are also others who would disagree, is
undeniable. The self-referential mode of the statement is not intended to be
construed as a subjectivistic assertion of truth. I appreciate the pitfalls
inherent in the "if it is true for me alone is true enough" kind of
attitude, and I do believe that criteria of truth must be objectivistic,
capable of being shared and communicated.

Hb3g:
This direct experience of the transcendental is an existential fact
that, in my opinion, we cannot rationally deny.

K:
Direct experience of the transcendental is a paradox, not an
existential fact, and so can be rationally denied.

[Hb3g]

We do appear to flat out disagree on this point. I would maintain that the
transcendental experience is a real experience. You seem to categorize this
as confusion (a paradox). But I would maintain that the paradoxical is also
an existentially real experience, and it isn't necessarily as simple a thing
as a mere confusion. The funny thing about a paradox is precisely that it
can neither be rationally denied, nor rationally affirmed, or, that both
affirmation and denial of the paradoxical situation is indeed possible. I am
reminded of Kant's paralogisms of pure reason in this case. I would be
interested in hearing your assessment of what it is that makes the
experience of the transcendental paradoxical. Is a paradoxical situation
necessarily a bad situation?

What might be an example of this direct transcendental experience? I
certainly do not see it as a vision or a miracle. I do not see it as an
experience that would fly in the face of our reasoned expectations about the
world. I think of it as being more along the lines of that moment of vision
of which Heidegger speaks in his Being and Time. It is a discernment of
truth where the ekstatic character of our participation in Time and Being
comes to light. It is intellectual in character, not strictly emotional. It
comes to us in that sense of the wonder of existence, of which Shelling
speaks, for instance, when he poses the basic question of existence,
rhetorically of course, asking us to consider, for a moment, how is it that
there exists anything at all? A similar stepping back with a sense of wonder
could also be found with respect to the phenomenon of conscious awareness
itself.

I guess if I had to sum up this direct experience of the transcendental in a
neat phrase, I would call it that "philosophical wonder" that inspires us to
a rational, noetic exegesis of our experience of the world, of our life, of
living, and of our own conscious awareness of all of this.

Voegelin maintains that are several kinds of transcendence in which we
participate, some of which are immanent to our world. For instance, there is
the transcendence of the subject into the body that we experience as a
physically embodied conscious being. There is the transcendence of the
subject into its world, similar to the throwness of which Heidegger speaks,
which, Voegelin asserts, unfolds primarily in a field of experience that is
historical in character, both in the broader historiographic sense, and in
the more personal biographical sense. Then, there is the transcendence
toward the ground of Being, the issue at hand for theological speculation.
Poesis would be another example of such transcendence, this time, within the
framework of language, where the written/spoken word conveys a direct
experience, through a unique application of the language for the conveyance
of an existential truth through imagery. Take, for instance, this first of
two legends of creation that the late Ted Hughes offers us in his anthology;
"From the Life and Songs of the Crow" published in 1970, pursuant to the
suicide of his wife, Sylvia Plath:

Black was the without eye

Black the within tongue

Black was the heart

Black the liver, black the lungs

Unable to suck in light

Black the blood in its loud tunnel

Black the bowels packed in furnace

Black too the muscles

Striving to pull out into the light

Black the nerves, black the brain

With its tombed visions

Black also the soul, the huge stammer

Of the cry that, swelling, could not

Pronounce its sun.

The passage is rife with the imagery of paradox, and it goes far beyond a
mere rant over the loss of a dear lover. It touches upon a deep struggle of
pessimism in the midst of light, of blackness ensconced in dazzling
brilliance, and the Crow becomes a metaphor, throughout the anthology, for
the dilemma of consciousness itself. It conveys an existential truth in a
manner far more poignant than the prosaic and the discursive could ever
achieve. There is something to be said for the contribution that poesis can
make to our rational discernment of the truth of Being. There is something
here revealed that carries within it, however depressing and pessimistic its
occasion might be, a transcendence into the paradoxical darkness of living
in the light.

Hb3g

Cheers,
K

Please support the Existential Primer... dedicated to explaining nothing!

Dear Fellow Members, I am selling a self-published work called The Flesh of Being -- Commentary on Nitzsche s Thus Spake Zaratustra. I am willing to give a

Message 16 of 24
, Nov 8, 2005

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Dear Fellow Members,

I am selling a self-published work called The Flesh of
Being -- Commentary on Nitzsche's Thus Spake
Zaratustra. I am willing to give a complimentary copy
to a reviewer who could review for the group. It is
334 pages long double -- spaced. It would sell for
30.00 USA Cerlox bound.

I recognize a formerly serious Christian when I read
one. You are
obviously a more patient person than me. I normally
get very angry
with people who question my intent or credentials. It
is most
unfortunate that we are not able to scrutinize the
real lives of the
poseurs who frequent these discussion venues. My
intuition never
fails me, but I need to follow it more often, sooner.
Thank you.

Whoever you are, I have been too kind with you, apparently. I value irony, humour, honour, and love, and I find none of these within your message below. I am

Message 17 of 24
, Nov 8, 2005

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Whoever you are, I have been too kind with you, apparently. I value
irony, humour, honour, and love, and I find none of these within
your message below.

I am truly sorry that you do not appreciate Iliadic dialectic. We
live in an age in which the gullible fool is feted, rewarded, and
flattered. Not having any appreciation yet of just who you as human
being, and your emanation posting here, might be, I cannot tell how
you think or whether there is any chance of our conversing. I doubt
it [chance of conversation], but then my impression is that time-
spans may be going to change, so if there's a few hundred years
going, who knows???

By the way, please do not take my posts too seriously. I am a
Nooist. Another concept which will elude you, thankfully.

Louise

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "jkneilson" <jkneilson@y...> wrote:
>
> Louise: Who is K??
>
> K: Apparently one who conducts inquisitions.
>
> Louise: Have you read "Guilty"/"Not Guilty?" A Story of Suffering,
An
> Imaginary Psychological Construction, by Frater Taciturnus, within
the
> volume, 'Stages On Life's Way??
>
> K: Yes, I have read it, years ago, and loved it.
>
> Louise: In Frater Taciturnus' study, you will find the answers to
all
> your questions, if you have any.
>
> K: Now you're just teasing me, Louise. You know I have questions.
But
> I've learned to avoid them in your presence, since you're
committed to
> Iliadic dialectic and all.
>
> Cheers.
>

sums_of_all

There is always two sides on each story. I may not ne living in America but what heppened on Sept. 11th is out of man s ignorance and insanity. Specifically,

Message 18 of 24
, Nov 8, 2005

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There is always two sides on each story.

I may not ne living in America but what heppened on Sept. 11th is out
of man's ignorance and insanity. Specifically, corrupted Muslims,
politicians, profiteering conglomorates, American
citizens/sympathizers too afraid to face the truth.

They act on rationality, not reason. They are maybe too dumb to know
the very nature or meaning of thier actions. Pitiful. It is like
folks of Transylvania compromising with Dracula to feed on one person
each month until there is no one left to be consumed. America is
being blood-sucked by Americans by means of fear and manipulation.

If change is to happen, it has to be NOW before we are all totally
consumed. We are now living in a post-modern world, America is no
longer living in the 40's where they want to liberate everybody from
the so called "Tyrany" of their native country. They need to
understand that.

> wrote:
> "imho that is also a conclusion in versions of mature philosophical
> reflections of other traditions that develops individually or
> collectively. very few people, if any, know different religious
> traditions with comparable sufficient depth and experience to be

able

> to evaluate their comparative "worth," esp. when context is
> considered.it's easier to work with comparable concrete parts than

> opinion becomes what one is to most readers. I could call myself any
> number of "ist" or "ian" words and the conclusion of most people

would

> automatically be that I have no experience or understanding of any
> other subject matter. In this case Nolan was a bit sharper than you.
> At fourteen I was seriously considering the seminary. My experience
> and understanding of the Christian religion has been lengthy and at

a

> depth most never reach, intertwined with painful personal
> relationships, and lifelong philosophical power struggles with

people

> and institutions. That I am now completely an atheist is not without
> implications, and not indicative of any lack of intellectual
> discipline or experience on my part. There is America and Europe;

and

> then there is the rest of the world, a different skin tone (dark), a
> different kitchen floor (dirt), a different opportunity (starving),a
> different necessity (revolution). Corporate Western Jesus is not

color

> blind, but as a matter of fact quite efficiently racist and
> greedy.Leaders of color in other nations should absolutely not

embrace

> American agendas, nor cow to overtures of brotherhood from the

twisted

> family of western wealth and power that controls this nation
> today.Sadly, I really think that average American Christians will do
> nothing to revolt for a change in government, and will continue to
> allow this group to represent the American people and American
> Christianity on the world stage, because they are still

fundamentally

> racist.American Christianity is really just a "justification"

disease,

> an avoidance of existential angst.It has now overtaken a once
> enlightened idea and marches it mutated toward the ruin of the whole
> world.I doubt that it can be stopped. It is clearly, scientifically,
> now giddily aggressive, what it always was - a suicide cult.There is
> no God to rebuild the planet: or so it was written - dominion was
> given to man.
>
> "come crucify the dread"
> Trinidad Cruz
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Please support the Existential Primer... dedicated to explaining

Trinidad and to whomever else existentially concerned, It s been awhile. I m intriguied to find you absorbed with the possibility of authentic Christian

Message 19 of 24
, Nov 8, 2005

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Trinidad and to whomever else existentially concerned,

It's been awhile. I'm intriguied to find you absorbed with the
possibility of authentic Christian existence. Louise speaks the
truth about cyberspace relations, and that's why I could only
imagine meeting you and her in person, and engaging in some powerful
dialetic and embrace. I've wandered away from this list, and truly
in my soul. I wept one night about two weeks ago and crying out
those infamous words of doubt mixed with faith- "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" Since then, I have discovered an
existential theatre so to speak in the work of Polish theatre artist
Jerry Grotowski, the "unbeliever" whose theatrical art I believe to
most informed by the Bible. I have delved into the history of
rock'n'roll, especially that of Led Zeppellin (Louise, I welcome
insight), I have been far too keen a student of my own Seducer's
Diary (Louise and all women, forgive me) and I have also discovered
another German Christian absorbed by existentialism in one William
Hubben. This man wrote two books in his life- "The Four Apoclapytic
Horsemen" (SK, FD, FN, and Franz Kafka) as wekk as his autobiography
Exiled Pilgrim, reportedly on his leaving Germany to come to America
in the Reich days.

Also, Trinidad, you know far more than I do, so I like Dostoevsky's
imagination reveling before mine, I kiss you like Aloysha did Ivan,
through cyberspace and consequentially wonder if would have the guts
to do such an Anti-American cultural phenomenon in public.

If only harsh critics like you had the faith, the American Christian
might be possible. Shestov echoes this timeless truth time and time
again from a very similar question put to Jesus himself....

Is it possible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven?

He replied that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle (which I hear is something like a gate into a town or
something) and then of course said beautiful words of faith, "With
God, all things are possible."

But, on to more wandering, hoping, believing, in spite of my
Doesstoevskian character,

>
> Occasionally, mostly out of exhaustion, the ultimate goal of the
> "fellowship" (a thousand years of a world unified behind entirely
> Christian leaders, Vereide's "Reich" of Jesus meant to facilitate

his

> return) is not particularly terrifying to me or an immediately
> pressing problem. As a scientist this looming agenda saddens me,

given

> the history of Christian reaction to scientific progress, but then

I

> won't live for a thousand years, nor would I abandon scientific
> endeavor just because uneducated people hold the reigns of power.

As

> an atheist I can only assess the agenda as more of the same: really
> quite stupid superstitious people lording it over other superior
> intellects. As an activist I am concerned not with the goal of the
> agenda, but rather the acts committed by weak and stupid men
> attempting to implement it, acts often violating the basic human
> rights of the victims along the way, victims often more educated,

more

> intelligent, and more decent, than the agendized humans inflicting
> them. I think now, this "fellowship" has too much power, too much
> wealth, and is far too active in the world against ordinary

citizens.

> As an existentialist I can only act on what seems to be. This man

is

> for me a rare example of a Christian with a partial sense of what
> seems to be. His example is the finest I can find for what a modern
> American Christian should emulate. In these times, in this

country, if

> you are dabbling in existentialism, and are a Christian, start with
> this man. He is the one for these days.
>
> Dietrich Bonhoeffer (February 4, 1906 - April 9, 1945) was a German
> Lutheran theologian and preacher who worked for the ecumene and
> strongly opposed the anti-semitic policies of Nazi Germany. He was
> eventually executed.
>
> Dietrich was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) into a
> middle to upper class family, the son of a doctor. At a very young
> age, before World War I began, he decided to become a minister. His
> parents supported his decision and he started to spend a lot of

time

> studying the Bible. When he was old enough he attended college and
> seminary and became a minister. He studied theology in Tübingen

and in

> New York City.
>
> He returned to Germany in 1931, where he lectured on theology in
> Berlin and wrote several books. A strong opponent of fascism, he

fled

> to London when Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. He returned

after

> Martin Niemöller and Karl Barth formed the anti-Nazi Confessing
> Church, only to have his seminary closed down at the outbreak of

World

> War II. The Gestapo also banned him from preaching. During this

time,

> Bonhoffer worked closely with numerous opponents of Hitler.
>
> During World War II, Dietrich played a key leadership role in the
> Confessing Church, which opposed the anti-semitic policies of Adolf
> Hitler. Initially Dietrich fought to gain strong support from the
> state church against Hitler's treatment of the Jews, but after
> countless instances of refusal to take action he took the

initiative

> to help start the confessing church. While the confessing church

was

> not large, it represented the only Christian church in Germany that
> was in opposition to Hitler's practices.
>
> After he realized that diplomatic means to stop Hitler were
> impossible, he decided that assassination was the only solution. He
> joined a hidden group of high-ranking officers who were trying to

have

> Hitler killed. Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943 after money

that

> was used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced to him. He

was

> charged with conspiracy and imprisoned for two years in

Flossenbürg.

> After the unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life on July 20, 1944,
> connections of Bonhoeffer to the conspirators were discovered, and

he

> was executed by hanging just three weeks before the liberation of

the

> city. His execution was carried out even though the Nazis knew that
> they were going to lose the war. They did not want the end of the

war

> to save Bonhoeffer from death.They did not consider the end of the

war

> the end of the Nazi agenda.
>
> He is considered a martyr for his faith and was later absolved of

any

> crimes by the postwar German government. His books Ethics (1949)

and

> Letters from Prison (1953) were published posthumously. In his
> theological writings, he states that Christianity should abandon

the

> "religious premise": the need for explanation of the world or man's
> need for salvation are not central, but rather the acting in the

world

> in imitation of Jesus.
>
> I think a modern example may be emerging in Dr. David Ray Griffin,

at

> least in the sense of speaking up about what may be true. Sadly,

for

> the most part, American Christians are afraid to face what they

built

> together with Bush family, the "fellowship", and Jesus Christ. In a
> misguided effort to use the state to enforce and promote religion

they

> have surrendered the individual power to act and be what they are -
> "Jesus's" in contrast to the state, in contrast to the world. I
> thought the "kingdom of Jesus" was not of this world. Indeed the
> existentialist Christian considers the "kingdom" to only exist in

the

> individual, on an individual basis, not something to be built on

earth

> by men in a group effort. Men in groups build buildings. Men in

groups

> sometimes blow buildings up. Men in groups do not, cannot, build
> individual conviction and character; and for an existentialist
> Christian - men in groups can blow up an individual's body, but

cannot

> blow up individual conviction and character.
>
> On Oct. 15th and 16th, New Yorkers filled two venues to hear the
> prominent theologian and author of two books on 9/11 give a
> presentation entitled "The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A
> Christian Theologian Speaks Out." Dr. Griffin has continued to

blaze a

> trail of courage, leading where most media and elected officials

have

> feared to tread. His presentation went straight to the core of one

of

> the most powerful indictments of the official story, the collapse

of

> the towers and WTC 7. Notable theologian David Ray Griffin argued

that

> recently revealed evidence seals the case that the Twin Towers and
> WTC-7 were destroyed by controlled demolition with explosives.

Despite

> the many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Griffin
> concluded, "It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable

doubt,

> one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center
> was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own

government."

>
> Dr. Griffin included excerpts from the firemen's tapes which were
> recently released as a result of a prolonged court battle led by
> victim's families represented by attorney Norman Siegel and

reported

> in the NY Times. He also included statements by many witnesses.

These

> sources gave ample testimony giving evidence of explosions going

off

> in the buildings. A 12 minute film was shown for the audiences, who
> saw for themselves the undeniable evidence for controlled

demolition.

>
> Dr. Griffin listed ten characteristics of the collapses which all
> indicate that the buildings did not fall due to being struck by

planes

> or the ensuing fires. He explained the buildings fell suddenly

without

> any indication of collapse. They fell straight into their own
> footprint at free-fall speed, meeting virtually no resistance as

they

> fell--a physical impossibility unless all vertical support was

being

> progressively removed by explosives severing the core columns. The
> towers were built to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and 160

mile

> per hour winds, and nothing about the plane crashes or ensuing

fires

> gave any indication of causing the kind of damage that would be
> necessary to trigger even a partial or progressive collapse, much

less

> the shredding of the buildings into dust and fragments that could

drop

> at free-fall speed. The massive core columns--the most significant
> structural feature of the buildings, whose very existence is

denied in

> the official 9/11 Commission Report--were severed into uniform 30

foot

> sections, just right for the 30-foot trucks used to remove them
> quickly before a real investigation could transpire. There was a
> volcanic-like dust cloud from the concrete being pulverized, and no
> physical mechanism other than explosives can begin to explain how

so

> much of the buildings' concrete was rendered into extremely fine

dust.

> The debris was ejected horizontally several hundred feet in huge

fan

> shaped plumes stretching in all directions, with telltale "squibs"
> following the path of the explosives downward. These are all facts
> that have been avoided by mainstream and even most of the

alternative

> media. Again, these are characteristics of the kind of controlled
> demolitions that news people and firefighters were describing on

the

> morning of 9/11. Those multiple first-person descriptions of
> controlled demolition were hidden away for almost four years by the
> City of New York until a lawsuit finally forced the city to release
> them. Dr. Griffin's study of these accounts has led him beyond his
> earlier questioning of the official story of the collapses, to his
> above-quoted conclusion: The destruction of the three WTC buildings
> with explosives by US government terrorists is no longer a

hypothesis,

> but a fact that has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
>
> In this venue I am asked to respect the Christian position in
> existentialism, often by the moderator. I am willing to do so,
> unfortunately I have yet to find any living Christians

participating

> here. I am always having to pick up the stones and bring back the
> ghosts to find one. Real living Christians in America may become as
> endangered a species as bio-chemists.
>
> "come crucify the dread"
> Trinidad Cruz
>

jkneilson

K: In a separate post, you wrote: What is really important ... about this model of dialectical discourse, is not what we end up achieving, in the way of

Message 20 of 24
, Nov 8, 2005

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K: In a separate post, you wrote: "What is really important ...
about this model of dialectical discourse, is not what we end up
achieving, in the way of certain knowledge, or noesis, at the end
point of the process, but what we learn about the process of
reasoning along the way." I love Socratic dialectic and have always
felt that its moral dimension is more important than any noesis that
results.

Picking up the thread of our conversation...

[Hb3g] I believe you understand this already, however, I say anyway
that I respect both your freedom to rationally decide your own
beliefs, and I also acknowledge that there are many spiritual and
philosophical traditions.

K: Thank you for the courtesy; I heartily extend it in return. I
would like to add that the world's spiritual and philosophical
traditions vie for our attention, and that we stand in need of
accepting some while rejecting others. As Whitman says, "You shall
listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

[Hb3g] It would be dogmatic of me to categorically assert that the
Christian vision is the only way.

K: Agreed, it's not the only way. Do you assert that it is
the "best" way?

[Hb3g] Nevertheless, even in the midst of great diversity of
tradition, creed, opinion, one cannot rationally assert a complete
relativism of such values.

K: I absolutely agree. Not all ideas, beliefs, and values are equal.
Some are superior to others. The question is, How do we filter
different religious beliefs? How do we determine which ones are
worthy of assent or rejection? When you say that Christian
existentialism challenges me to believe in the resurrection and
eternal life, why should I adopt this belief? Should I adopt it
because it's useful, or true, or beautiful, or because it satisfies
a basic need rooted deep in the core of my being?

[Hb3g] Belief matters, and questions of faith, or trust in the
rationality of existence, are lively questions.

K: Very lively questions, indeed. And how we arrive at answers to
these questions is very important. Incidentally, have you read
Pascal? His Wager busts, but he does say some very valuable things
about belief. Belief as light, belief as guide to action, belief as
supplement to reason. Etc.

[Hb3g] I appreciate the pitfalls inherent in the "if it is true for
me alone is true enough" kind of attitude, and I do believe that
criteria of truth must be objectivistic, capable of being shared and
communicated.

K: So far, we agree on most points. I draw a distinction between
private reasons and public ones. A public reason is capable of being
shared and communicated to others while transcending the narrow
confines of one's own subjectivity. If I want to convince you of the
truth of the Five Pillars of Islam, it's not enough for me to say
that I had a profound, revelatory experience. This may be a strong,
private reason for believing, but it's certainly a weak public one.

[Hb3g] We do appear to flat out disagree on this point. I would
maintain that the transcendental experience is a real experience.
You seem to categorize this
as confusion (a paradox).

K: Yes, we may disagree here. Let's see, I'm assuming that the
transcendental is that which is beyond experience. Given this
definition, I have to argue that transcendental experience is a
paradox; it's logically impossible. But it looks like your
definition is different. You say...

[Hb3g] What might be an example of this direct transcendental
experience? I certainly do not see it as a vision or a miracle. I do
not see it as an experience that would fly in the face of our
reasoned expectations about the world. I think of it as being more
along the lines of that moment of vision of which Heidegger speaks
in his Being and Time. It is a discernment of truth where the
ekstatic character of our participation in Time and Being
comes to light. It is intellectual in character, not strictly
emotional. It comes to us in that sense of the wonder of existence,
of which Shelling speaks, for instance, when he poses the basic
question of existence, rhetorically of course, asking us to
consider, for a moment, how is it that there exists anything at all?
A similar stepping back with a sense of wonder could also be found
with respect to the phenomenon of conscious awareness itself.

K: On your view, transcendental experience is not a vision or a
miracle. It doesn't violate reasoned expectations about the world.
It's intellectual in character. You go on to add that transcendental
experience is a kind of "philosophical wonder that inspires us to a
rational, noetic exegesis of our experience of the world, of our
life, of living, and of our own conscious awareness of all of this."
You've so gutted the historical meaning of transcendence (i.e., that
which is beyond our experience of the world) that I endorse your
highly specialized use of the term. It's as congenial to the
astrophysicist as it is to the ontologist. Both are intimately
acquainted with philosophical wonder.

Cheers,
K

acenvironmentalsolutions@comcast.net

Remove me from your list 30 e-mails a day is a little too much for anybobdy. Thank you, Andre Chavez ... K: In a separate post, you wrote: What is really

Message 21 of 24
, Nov 8, 2005

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Remove me from your list 30 e-mails a day is a little too much for anybobdy. Thank you, Andre Chavez
-------------- Original message --------------
K: In a separate post, you wrote: "What is really important ...
about this model of dialectical discourse, is not what we end up
achieving, in the way of certain knowledge, or noesis, at the end
point of the process, but what we learn about the process of
reasoning along the way." I love Socratic dialectic and have always
felt that its moral dimension is more important than any noesis that
results.

Picking up the thread of our conversation...

[Hb3g] I believe you understand this already, however, I say anyway
that I respect both your freedom to rationally decide your own
beliefs, and I also acknowledge that there are many spiritual and
philosophical traditions.

K: Thank you for the courtesy; I heartily extend it in return. I
would like to add that the world's spiritual and philosophical
traditions vie for our attention, and that we stand in need of
accepting some while rejecting others. As Whitman says, "You shall
listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

[Hb3g] It would be dogmatic of me to categorically assert that the
Christian vision is the only way.

K: Agreed, it's not the only way. Do you assert that it is
the "best" way?

[Hb3g] Nevertheless, even in the midst of great diversity of
tradition, creed, opinion, one cannot rationally assert a complete
relativism of such values.

K: I absolutely agree. Not all ideas, beliefs, and values are equal.
Some are superior to others. The question is, How do we filter
different religious beliefs? How do we determine which ones are
worthy of assent or rejection? When you say that Christian
existentialism challenges me to believe in the resurrection and
eternal life, why should I adopt this belief? Should I adopt it
because it's useful, or true, or beautiful, or because it satisfies
a basic need rooted deep in the core of my being?

[Hb3g] Belief matters, and questions of faith, or trust in the
rationality of existence, are lively questions.

K: Very lively questions, indeed. And how we arrive at answers to
these questions is very important. Incidentally, have you read
Pascal? His Wager busts, but he does say some very valuable things
about belief. Belief as light, belief as guide to action, belief as
supplement to reason. Etc.

[Hb3g] I appreciate the pitfalls inherent in the "if it is true for
me alone is true enough" kind of attitude, and I do believe that
criteria of truth must be objectivistic, capable of being shared and
communicated.

K: So far, we agree on most points. I draw a distinction between
private reasons and public ones. A public reason is capable of being
shared and communicated to others while transcending the narrow
confines of one's own subjectivity. If I want to convince you of the
truth of the Five Pillars of Islam, it's not enough for me to say
that I had a profound, revelatory experience. This may be a strong,
private reason for believing, but it's certainly a weak public one.

[Hb3g] We do appear to flat out disagree on this point. I would
maintain that the transcendental experience is a real experience.
You seem to categorize this
as confusion (a paradox).

K: Yes, we may disagree here. Let's see, I'm assuming that the
transcendental is that which is beyond experience. Given this
definition, I have to argue that transcendental experience is a
paradox; it's logically impossible. But it looks like your
definition is different. You say...

[Hb3g] What might be an example of this direct transcendental
experience? I certainly do not see it as a vision or a miracle. I do
not see it as an experience that would fly in the face of our
reasoned expectations about the world. I think of it as being more
along the lines of that moment of vision of which Heidegger speaks
in his Being and Time. It is a discernment of truth where the
ekstatic character of our participation in Time and Being
comes to light. It is intellectual in character, not strictly
emotional. It comes to us in that sense of the wonder of existence,
of which Shelling speaks, for instance, when he poses the basic
question of existence, rhetorically of course, asking us to
consider, for a moment, how is it that there exists anything at all?
A similar stepping back with a sense of wonder could also be found
with respect to the phenomenon of conscious awareness itself.

K: On your view, transcendental experience is not a vision or a
miracle. It doesn't violate reasoned expectations about the world.
It's intellectual in character. You go on to add that transcendental
experience is a kind of "philosophical wonder that inspires us to a
rational, noetic exegesis of our experience of the world, of our
life, of living, and of our own conscious awareness of all of this."
You've so gutted the historical meaning of transcendence (i.e., that
which is beyond our experience of the world) that I endorse your
highly specialized use of the term. It's as congenial to the
astrophysicist as it is to the ontologist. Both are intimately
acquainted with philosophical wonder.

Cheers,
K

Please support the Existential Primer... dedicated to explaining nothing!

I love Socratic dialectic and have always felt that its moral dimension is more important than any noesis that results. [Hb3g] Yes, it is what you learn along

Message 22 of 24
, Nov 8, 2005

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I love Socratic dialectic and have always
felt that its moral dimension is more important than any noesis that
results.

[Hb3g]

Yes, it is what you learn along the way, and what you learn about how to get
there that really matters. The noesis is actually in the journey toward the
thesis. The midwifery is about the facilitation of that noesis, helping each
other as we grope our way out of the cave and out into the light.

K: Agreed, it's not the only way. Do you assert that it is
the "best" way?

[Hb3g]

I would not make such a sweeping assertion. Let me just say that, in a
certain respect, it is perhaps the most daring because it suggests the
possibility of physical immortality, a state that is taken for granted in
Hindu and Buddhist systems of belief, but which is not at all
non-controversial. Given the everyday facts of existence that present
themselves as we live our lives, there really isn't a basis for a firm
belief in reincarnation in the orthodox sense in which it is presented to us
by Hindu and Buddhist doctrines. This is where the notion of resurrection
comes into play as a daring kind of leap for its day, and even for today.
Another daring element, which was pretty much downplayed in Christian
theology until the Reformation period and the rise of Protestantism, was the
concept of the Holy Spirit, a transcendent force operating immanently in the
world and history. This idea has continued to become more central as the
rule of orthodoxy in Christian theology has continued to wane.

When you say that Christian existentialism challenges me to believe in the
resurrection and
eternal life, why should I adopt this belief? Should I adopt it
because it's useful, or true, or beautiful, or because it satisfies
a basic need rooted deep in the core of my being?

[Hb3g]

Even though I am a technical professional with little formal academic
training in philosophy, I would have to say that my orientation here is as
if I were a philosopher, not a theologian, and not a believer. As a
philosopher, if I really were one, this perspective would be lively to me
because of its potential explanatory power.

Incidentally, have you read Pascal? His Wager busts, but he does say some
very valuable things
about belief. Belief as light, belief as guide to action, belief as
supplement to reason. Etc.

[Hb3g]

Yes, I am familiar with his wager argument, but have not undertaken a
thorough reading of Pensees. I am not a believer, but I have recently
undertaken some readings into comparative religion because theology
interests me philosophically. The religions of the world talk a great deal
about the transcendent ground, about the nature of Being, and of time, and
these are issues that definitely interest me.

K: Yes, we may disagree here. Let's see, I'm assuming that the
transcendental is that which is beyond experience. Given this
definition, I have to argue that transcendental experience is a
paradox; it's logically impossible. But it looks like your
definition is different. You say...

[Hb3g]

What is beyond experience is a pretty vague notion anyway. Dark matter is
beyond experience, yet we have good scientific reasons for believing that it
exists. Black holes are beyond normal everyday experience, yet we have all
but proven that they actually do exist. The eleven dimensional physical
manifold of M-theory, although still only an hypothesis, is reasonable
enough to the sober minded physicists who continue to strive to unify their
ontological map of the physical universe, yet clearly any dimensions beyond
the three that we are familiar with in our everyday common experience are,
technically speaking, beyond our immediate experience.

You've so gutted the historical meaning of transcendence (i.e., that
which is beyond our experience of the world) that I endorse your
highly specialized use of the term. It's as congenial to the
astrophysicist as it is to the ontologist. Both are intimately
acquainted with philosophical wonder.

[Hb3g]

It could be, as Heidegger has so insistently maintained through the course
of his meditations on the ontological question, that the entire metaphysical
history of Western philosophy needs to be gutted. I tend to believe this.
But it is not my intention to explain away the transcendence by reducing it
to a psychologistic sense of wonder. The philosophical wonder is the initial
impetus toward the noesis. Voegelin believed that this noesis flourished
briefly in the classical transcendental philosophies of Plato and Aristotle,
but has since been obscured by dogmatic theology and metaphysics. Heidegger
places the point of obscuration further back into the Pre-Socratic period.

*****

In any case, here in the opening years of the twenty first century, we are
on a completely different field of play. The physics has radically altered
our concepts of physical reality and of time. I don't think that philosophy
has really quite caught up with all of this, and I am expecting to see some
rather astonishing philosophical work in the years ahead of us.

Cheers,
K

Please support the Existential Primer... dedicated to explaining nothing!

this bounced earlier, maybe the server at this end... ... i am interested in folk cosmologies. the latvian daina-world or song-world might be compared to some

Message 23 of 24
, Nov 9, 2005

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this bounced earlier, maybe the server at this end...

> What is beyond experience is a pretty vague notion anyway. Dark matter
> is beyond experience, yet we have good scientific reasons for believing
> that it exists. Black holes are beyond normal everyday experience, yet
> we have all but proven that they actually do exist. The eleven
> dimensional physical manifold of M-theory, although still only an
> hypothesis, is reasonable enough to the sober minded physicists who
> continue to strive to unify their ontological map of the physical
> universe, yet clearly any dimensions beyond the three that we are
> familiar with in our everyday common experience are, technically
> speaking, beyond our immediate experience.

> It could be, as Heidegger has so insistently maintained through the
> course of his meditations on the ontological question, that the entire
> metaphysical history of Western philosophy needs to be gutted. I tend to
> believe this. But it is not my intention to explain away the
> transcendence by reducing it to a psychologistic sense of wonder. The
> philosophical wonder is the initial impetus toward the noesis. Voegelin
> believed that this noesis flourished briefly in the classical
> transcendental philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, but has since been
> obscured by dogmatic theology and metaphysics. Heidegger places the
> point of obscuration further back into the Pre-Socratic period.

i am interested in folk cosmologies. the latvian daina-world or
song-world might be compared to some period of archaic Greek (some aspect
of Homeric, pre-Socratic more likely than Platonic or post). its
cognitive roots are pre-Christian.

how much of the daina-world is indo-european is debatable (the baltic
daina-world and finnic runo/kalevala-world have connections all the way
back), and in any case the "same" concept is not necessarily interpreted
"the same" among different i-e or finno-ugric "branches" but varies by
region, place, time, and unique influence from contacts with others each
group makes uniquely.

oversimplifying, the area around the Baltic part of the northern european
world goes back to the aboriginal Mesolithic peoples who seem to have been
indo-europeanized as Finnic, Baltic, and Old Scandinavian as the result of
new peoples moving north, after that from the south Old Slavic plus other
influences thrown in as spice in continuous movement in any case resulting
in some concepts broadly common to this geographical area, but others
differing according to region. it is interesting because there are both
similarities and differences to commonly known world cosmological models.

the daina-world (analogous to such a division in other mythologies)
appears to be divided in two areas of experience, immediate labeled as
This-sun (Shi saule) and conceptual beyond direct experience That-sun
(Vinjsaule). in this conceptualization humans are also aware of two or
three types of time:

1) finite based on the duration of human or living creature time (thus,
mans mu'zin's' - my time)

2) infinite "sun time" also the time in which "water" and "stone"
participate ("not for me to live a sun time; for the water, for the stone
to live a sun time" - nedzi'vot saules mu'z'u; udenjam, akmenjam tam
dzi'vot saules mu'z'u.)

the sun (Saule), appearing as mother reborn as daughter, is the primary
relevant time marker referent to the human in a shared realm with the
stars and the (male) moon). the (feminine) earth Zeme is also known as
under-sun world (Pasaule).

the sun-world and the earth-world though perceived separately are also
linked as one - "mother." the concept of a "tree" as an in-between (of
finite, infinite) concept links different worlds in many Eurasian
cosmologies, including the Baltic. there were sacred trees that were
known to have survived many generations of humans, but trees unlike water
or stone die like humans, animals, or seasonal vegetation. that's where
the two-tiered or three-tiered or multiple-tiered worlds schemas come in.

immediate, lived experience of This-sun concretely is the space one lives,
which for the pre-industrial farmer was his homestead, or the fisherman on
the Baltic Sea his village.

2) includes not only what is strange, not well understood, uncontrolable,
or of what one is barely aware. in mythology this includes the wild
surrounding the domestic space (concretely it could be the forest). it is
the locus of wild life, nature spirits some of whom may come to be
deified. since burial in pre-Christian times used to be in sacred forests
or in waters - also the realm of the dead.

on a perceptual level there is no clear division of the unfamiliar space
spatially if on earth but in the wild, above in the heavens, or below
earth in a cave or the depths of a lake or a grave. such a distinction is
made by systemizers of myth who come up with alternative self-consistent
structures. but if there are no systemizers and it is oral, then the
unfamiliar (nature and guiding spirists, the ancestors) can remain in a
dream-world that doesn't have to be logically consistent.

parallel daina-myths have the orphan girl locate her mother in the world
to which the sun travels each night, or in the forest beneath the roots of
an apple tree (a mother symbol). psychologically it is to a realm about
which one can speculate. when i sang these logically conflicting songs as
a child, the alternative songs did not originally strike me as belonging
to conflicting spatial paradigms. there are dainas that imagine
Othersunworld to be in some ways a fuzzily observable more spiritual
parallel to Thisworld, but there are also dainas that bluntly state:

s'i' sauli'te man zinama, vin'sauli'te nezinama.
(this sun is known to me, that sun is not known to me.)

> What is beyond experience is a pretty vague notion anyway. Dark matter
> is beyond experience, yet we have good scientific reasons for believing
> that it exists. Black holes are beyond normal everyday experience, yet
> we have all but proven that they actually do exist. The eleven
> dimensional physical manifold of M-theory, although still only an
> hypothesis, is reasonable enough to the sober minded physicists who
> continue to strive to unify their ontological map of the physical
> universe, yet clearly any dimensions beyond the three that we are
> familiar with in our everyday common experience are, technically
> speaking, beyond our immediate experience.

> It could be, as Heidegger has so insistently maintained through the
> course of his meditations on the ontological question, that the entire
> metaphysical history of Western philosophy needs to be gutted. I tend to
> believe this. But it is not my intention to explain away the
> transcendence by reducing it to a psychologistic sense of wonder. The
> philosophical wonder is the initial impetus toward the noesis. Voegelin
> believed that this noesis flourished briefly in the classical
> transcendental philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, but has since been
> obscured by dogmatic theology and metaphysics. Heidegger places the
> point of obscuration further back into the Pre-Socratic period.

i am interested in folk cosmologies. the latvian daina-world or
song-world might be compared to some period of archaic Greek (some aspect
of Homeric, pre-Socratic more likely than Platonic or post). its
cognitive roots are pre-Christian.

how much of the daina-world is indo-european is debatable (the baltic
daina-world and finnic runo/kalevala-world have connections all the way
back), and in any case the "same" concept is not necessarily interpreted
"the same" among different i-e or finno-ugric "branches" but varies by
region, place, time, and unique influence from contacts with others each
group makes uniquely.

oversimplifying, the area around the Baltic part of the northern european
world goes back to the aboriginal Mesolithic peoples who seem to have been
indo-europeanized as Finnic, Baltic, and Old Scandinavian as the result of
new peoples moving north, after that from the south Old Slavic plus other
influences thrown in as spice in continuous movement in any case resulting
in some concepts broadly common to this geographical area, but others
differing according to region. it is interesting because there are both
similarities and differences to commonly known world cosmological models.

the daina-world (analogous to such a division in other mythologies)
appears to be divided in two areas of experience, immediate labeled as
This-sun (Shi saule) and conceptual beyond direct experience That-sun
(Vinjsaule). in this conceptualization humans are also aware of two or
three types of time:

1) finite based on the duration of human or living creature time (thus,
mans mu'zin's' - my time)

2) infinite "sun time" also the time in which "water" and "stone"
participate ("not for me to live a sun time; for the water, for the stone
to live a sun time" - nedzi'vot saules mu'z'u; udenjam, akmenjam tam
dzi'vot saules mu'z'u.)

the sun (Saule), appearing as mother reborn as daughter, is the primary
relevant time marker referent to the human in a shared realm with the
stars and the (male) moon). the (feminine) earth Zeme is also known as
under-sun world (Pasaule).

the sun-world and the earth-world though perceived separately are also
linked as one - "mother." the concept of a "tree" as an in-between (of
finite, infinite) concept links different worlds in many Eurasian
cosmologies, including the Baltic. there were sacred trees that were
known to have survived many generations of humans, but trees unlike water
or stone die like humans, animals, or seasonal vegetation. that's where
the two-tiered or three-tiered or multiple-tiered worlds schemas come in.

immediate, lived experience of This-sun concretely is the space one lives,
which for the pre-industrial farmer was his homestead, or the fisherman on
the Baltic Sea his village.

2) includes not only what is strange, not well understood, uncontrolable,
or of what one is barely aware. in mythology this includes the wild
surrounding the domestic space (concretely it could be the forest). it is
the locus of wild life, nature spirits some of whom may come to be
deified. since burial in pre-Christian times used to be in sacred forests
or in waters - also the realm of the dead.

on a perceptual level there is no clear division of the unfamiliar space
spatially if on earth but in the wild, above in the heavens, or below
earth in a cave or the depths of a lake or a grave. such a distinction is
made by systemizers of myth who come up with alternative self-consistent
structures. but if there are no systemizers and it is oral, then the
unfamiliar (nature and guiding spirists, the ancestors) can remain in a
dream-world that doesn't have to be logically consistent.

parallel daina-myths have the orphan girl locate her mother in the world
to which the sun travels each night, or in the forest beneath the roots of
an apple tree (a mother symbol). psychologically it is to a realm about
which one can speculate. when i sang these logically conflicting songs as
a child, the alternative songs did not originally strike me as belonging
to conflicting spatial paradigms. there are dainas that imagine
Othersunworld to be in some ways a fuzzily observable more spiritual
parallel to Thisworld, but there are also dainas that bluntly state:

s'i' sauli'te man zinama, vin'sauli'te nezinama.
(this sun is known to me, that sun is not known to me.)

aija

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